Stars
by TheCivilState
Summary: Klaus' favorite color is yellow.  Caroline is determined to find out why.


"I want to talk about you. Your hopes, your dreams, everything you want in life." She laughs and the blonde curls she spent forty-five minutes on bounce against her shoulders and contrast against the darkness of her outfit. _Something sexy, _Damon had said when he told her Klaus needed to be seduced within an inch of his life. She'd normally be put out by Damon bossing her around and would have put up resistance at the thought of being used as a distraction for the most powerful villain in existence. But then she realized that this hybrid abomination had been around for centuries and probably knew every seduction trick in the book. Hell, he'd probably _written _the book. And that is how seducing Klaus became a challenge to Caroline. She wanted to see if she could one up him.

"Just to be clear," she said, "I'm too smart to be seduced by you."

"Well, that's why I like you," came his response as his face split into a grin. She rolled her eyes and looked away, choosing to stare intently at the vehicles parked before the Grill. She'd heard the car horn moments ago when Klaus was pursuing her after her exit from the bar and knew he'd have to be quite intoxicated if oncoming vehicles were almost hitting him.

"You know," she said, "You're a terrible conversationalist." He chuckled, but she resisted the urge to look at him. There was this smile that always accompanied his laugh and she'd had the privilege to see it a few times the night of the ball. That night seemed lightyears in the past, but his smile was still present, upfront and in the moment and she knew if she just turned her head slightly, she would see it.

"On the contrary," came his British accent, "I happen to excel at small talk. I decided we would talk about you and you, love, are being difficult." She rolled her head to the side to look at him before sighing in exasperation. Her legs crossed and her heeled foot brushed against his leg. She kept her eyes trained on the cars in the parking lot as she jutted out her lower lip just enough for a pout that always got her what she wanted. Or at least it got her what she wanted when it came to human boys and not hybrid men who were lazily tracing patterns into the sleeve of her jacket with fingers that had ripped out countless hearts from countless chests and not in a figurative, "He's a heartbreaker," sort of way. She shrugged his hand away and looked at him, eyes narrowing as he unsuccessfully hid his smirk.

"Fine," she said, "What's your favorite color?" He opened his mouth to respond, to say, _This is supposed to be about you_, but he didn't because no one, not in his entire existence, had ever asked him the simplest of all questions: _What is your favorite color?_

"Gold," he finally said after a moment's thought and Caroline bit her tongue and wished he'd chosen something else. She would have accepted blue as an answer despite how common a choice, or even burgundy for its association with blood. But not gold.

"Why gold?" she asked and he smiled, reaching up to twirl a lock of her hair around his finger. She swatted his hand away and he let her.

"It's the color of you hair," he said and she shook her head, turning away from him. There was no being serious with him and she didn't understand why that bothered her. She was supposed to hate him, not wonder why his favorite color was gold.

"And yours?" he asked. She thought about lying, but then figured if Klaus had somehow managed to dagger all his siblings and keep the true identity of their mother's killer a secret this long, he probably knew a thing or two about lying. Hell, he could probably smell a lie the moment she conjured it in her head.

"Gold," she said. She was greeted by a moment of silence where Klaus' fingers weren't tugging on her curls or drawing geometric patterns into the sleeve of her coat. It was an awkward silence and she turned to face him only to see him puzzling over something. When he finally registered she was looking at him, he turned that puzzled look to her face.

"Are you being honest?" he asked. Apparently, she had thought a little too highly of the Big Bad Hybrid and his ability to sniff out a lie. She didn't say that though, just nodded and watched his expressions shift and dance across his face like a complicated waltz. Like the waltz they had danced at the ball.

"Why?" When the question inevitably came, she had the answer ready. After all, Caroline Forbes did not take things such as favorite color lightly, unlike a certain hybrid.

"Because in kindergarten," she said, "Our teacher used to give us gold stars if we did something really good. And if you got enough gold stars, you got to be at the front of the line when everyone headed out to recess. I liked being in front, so I earned as many gold stars as I could."

To some people, a confession like this would have seemed vain, shallow, and selfish. But that's not what Klaus saw. He didn't see a spoiled girl who liked to be the teacher's pet. He didn't see a blonde, high school dream, a Queen Bee, a cheerleader captain with neurotic tendencies. He saw someone who knew what they wanted and went after it regardless of what others thought. In short, he saw a better version of himself.

Eventually, Klaus staring at her and the silence stretching between them like a chasm became too much and Caroline stood with every intention of leaving. Forget Damon and his demand that she keep Klaus busy. She had other things to do and putting up with a creepy hybrid was not at the top of that list. Klaus' hand darted out and caught her elbow and she turned to look back at him, watching the way the ambient light danced across his cheekbones as he tilted his face to look up at her.

"Gold isn't my favorite color," he said and Caroline had a mental _I knew it_, "At least not anymore." Her brow furrowed and for a second she contemplated sitting back down and prying from him the reason gold was no longer his favorite color. But doing so would admit he had some sort of hold on her and she couldn't do that.

"It's close," he said, "My favorite color. It's close to gold, but not quite."

"Yellow?" she said in disbelief because she could not imagine someone like Klaus liking a color like yellow. But he smiled and nodded.

"Yes," he admitted, "And because I know you'll ask, or at least I hope you will, it's my favorite color because it's the color of your room and I like your room."

"Why?" she said, because there was nothing else to say when the most powerful creature ever admits to liking your taste in room decor.

"Because it's warm and full of light and reminds me of you." She hesitated then, like a sixteen year old given permission to go driving alone for the first time. She hesitated and shifted on her feet and watched as he released her arm. There, he was giving her a choice. A choice he would by no means influence. And yet, by releasing her, he had made her decision for her. Somewhere, back in the far recesses of her mind that Caroline refused to visit, she knew he was well aware of this. Nothing Klaus did was unplanned; every word and gesture carefully scripted for a reaction. But in this moment, she found she could care less. She dropped back onto the bench and looked at him.

"What's your favorite holiday?" He smiled and if Caroline allowed herself to drift down that path, she liked to think it was a smile he reserved only for her.

"American or not?" he asked and her eyes lit up at the thought that he had experienced every holiday in every country.

"I, I don't know where to start," she said. He leaned into the wooden beams of the bench and looked up at the gold stars.

"How about we start with Venice and Carnival?"

**a/n: **I wonder what Klaus' favorite color really is. Someone should tweet that to Joseph Morgan and let me know the answer. M'kay?

Fave, flame, faint.

oxox


End file.
